I was sitting in the sunshine just outside Big Bear in my homegirl Arrissia's front yard—all pine cones and sweet air and a sweet yellow playhouse for her sweet daughter, Chloe—nursing on a Shiner Bock while the children flapped and clucked. Saturday was sweet.
“Ring ring!” said my phone!
“Hello!” said I!
“I just got back from Ireland!” said Chris Gaffney! “Van Morrison is an asshole.”
Saturday had gotten sweeter yet.
While Gaffney played the Small Stage at some random Irish festival, he said, he could hear “Moondance” coming from the Other. “So there was nobody at your stage,” I said.
“There was a huge crowd at our stage!” Gaffney explained. “It was just even huge-ier at his!” I seem to be spreading this disregard for the normal conventions of the English language as one would spread the sweetest syph.
But the crowd during “Moondance” wasn't the problem.
“He has a rider in his contract that says nobody can get within 10 yards of him,” Gaffney explained. “He kicked Glen Campbell out of his dressing room!”
He kicked Glen Campbell—the Rhinestone Cowboy!—out of his dressing room?
“He kicked Glen Campbell out of Glen Campbell's dressing room,” Gaffney clarified, “so he'd have more room not tobe in.”
Wow, Van Morrison is an asshole!
Big Bear was a tonic of ease and delight. Sunday we went to the Old Miner's Day Parade, complete with a guy riding his bike with a case of Coors on his shoulder and an ink-black shiner on his eye, fantabulously rockin' bands a-marching, a couple—married 62 years that day—kissing the entire length of the route, and our favorite: Shriners in tiny cars. Why can't we be Shriners? Why can't we have tiny cars?
I blame, as usual, GMand Exxon, and you know who I don't blame? The Jews.
In fact, when one Shriner's putt-putt stopped its putt-putting, the large group of young Hassidim across the street from us—all in matching black pants and white shirts and MagicStrings—quickly converged on him to give him a push start. It would have been my favorite part of the day, if not for the scumbag with the bruises and beer.
The whole week was rife with such tasty treats. Wednesday we'd hit the Fullerton Sports Complex—a terrifying name for what's just a nice park—for a sunshiny concert by my true love, Jimmy Intveld. While the children frolicked like banshees, we sat on a blanket front and center and gathered around us such handsomeness as Robert from BigSandy and Steve the Dreamy Drummer From Burnin' Groove, so Jimmy Intveld would notice (us). He didn't, of course, for a change. I swear to God I've met that man a couple dozen times going back 10 years. I invited him to Linda Jemison's wedding. And I still have to tell him who I am each time I see him. (At the Hootenanny this year, I got to include, “And this is my 12-year-old son, Jimmy!” Because nothing says sexy like a chick with a preteen—of whom you can wonder for the tiniest moment if he were named after you.) When we left, after a good long set and a right-fine show, we didn't even go up to say hello/goodbye.
“Fuck it,” I explained to Cher, maybe buzzed just a tiny, since Robert was packing tequila. “If he doesn't love me by now, that's on him.” It may be my new mantra. It's very freeing. And it's James Harman this Wednesday, 6:30ish.
There's a great Liz Phair song—she used to be great, kids; it's too, too true!—that goes, “Well, it's true that I stole your lighter, and it's also true that I lost the map. But when you said I wasn't worth talking to, well, I had to take your word on that.” So it's a great song. But when I heard Paris Hilton might have stolen all the swimsuits from the gift bags for the VIPS at the Surfrider benefit at the Living Room in Costa Mesa Sunday night, well, I can't get the song out of my head and so I can't write much of anything else. “Stole”? Check. “Lost”? Check. “Not worth talking to”? Check and check.
I wasn't there, mind you. I went for like an hour and it was full of all those Newporters who definitely weren't worth talking to, and there was a bit of a stiff, chilly wind for which no one was dressed, and I didn't particularly want to buy any drink tickets, and Paris Hilton? Hmmmm. Yeah, no. Playing inside, though, was a funny two-piece with a charming song (very Presidents of the United Bare Naked Ladies) about kicking emo kids' asses. “He can't really run away,” lilted they, “because he's wearing his sister's pants!” So that was good. Also, there was an outrageous amount of food.
Amy from Scoop PR, which worked on the event, said Hilton didn't steal shit (she didn't say “shit”) and that she couldn't have been more gracious, and was perfect, really, and she couldn't conceive where I could have heard that from. (A) I heard it from an evildoer, clearly, and (B) I hope Paris Hilton wasn't so gracious as to compliment your outfit. She did that to our own dear Mary Reilly once, and I'll copy and paste Mary Reilly's explication of it here for everyone's enjoyment.
“[S]he whispered to me, cell phone still cradled between her shoulder and her ear, that she 'loved' my black and white polka dot dress [. . .] In November, Rollingstone.com ran a feature story on Hilton in which a reporter revealed that Hilton's sartorial exclamation 'I just love your dress!' was her way of politely calling me a 'Debbie.' That's Hiltonspeak for a 'desperate' or 'hungry' person in search of 'fame and attention' who 'can't yet figure out how to get it.' I winced, remembering that I'd replied to Hilton's faux compliment with an enthusiastic, albeit slurred, 'Thanks! I got it at Loehmann's!'”
Watch your ass, Hilton! Nobody picks on my Mary Reilly but me!
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MELTING POINT WRAP-UP:Last week, in a show about the UN (again!), a caller accused me of not being in touch with my femininity, before saying I indulge in “ad hominem-lite” attacks. KJ said the UN must die; Shawnand Eric agreed, but Eric said the mess in the Middle East is Jimmy Carter's fault for “projecting weakness,” and those, to me, are fighting words. I don't recall Jimmy Carter negotiating with terrorists and offering them arms to keep our hostages until after the election—that was Ronnie Reagan—but I guess that's just me. Also, my old friend Benton (like from before I was born; our moms went to school together 45 years ago) called in and said something about abortion and men going to the bathroom standing up, but he'd just come from our other family friend's wedding, so I have to assume he was hammered. Plus, we give out T-shirts. How can you not want to get in on that?
Check out Melting Point Sundays at 11 p.m. on KRLA-AM 870. CommieGirlCollective.com.
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